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Thursday, March 26, 2015

DIY Murphy Bed (Wall Bed)

We have always wanted a murphy bed in our guest room. We only get visitors about once a year and it just didn't make sense to have a room with a giant queen sized bed taking up most of the room and no one used it hardly! With a family of 7, we need all the space we can get!!

I had researched murphy beds throughout all these past years and to purchase one ready made ran anywhere from $1000-$3000!! Yikes!

So then I researched DIY murphy beds and I either didn't like the look of it (thought it looked cheap and like it belonged in a dorm room) or by the time you purchased the spring kit and everything it was gonna run almost $1000 anyway!

I finally found this blog post and was inspired! She made it seem manageable and my husband was on board!

So without further ado...how to make your own DIY Murphy Bed!!

We started by making the bed, measuring the mattress and figuring out how big of an area you need to hold the mattress.

Then you take that platform and use it to build the wall out, so to speak.

So my husband set the bed platform in between the new "walls" to make sure it fit without too big of a gap.

Then he built the bottom that the bed will actually sit on and the top frame.

So here is the bed just sitting on the base (not attached yet with the door hinges but just sitting on top of the base).

The next thing we did was build the shelves on either side of the bed.

From there comes the tedious finishing work. You have to put wood faces on everything.

As you can see, the top piece is basically a flap that will come down when bed is up for storage. When bed is ready to come down, you lift it up a few inches and pull the bed down and then let it flap back down.

When we pull the bed down, the legs (which are just a piece of wood, like a 2x6) swivel out and voila you have bed legs!

Now as you can see when the bed is down, this is what connects it to the base...heavy duty door hinges. We used 4 to be extra safe.

Now with using these door hinges, versus the expensive spring kits, it cuts back on the cost considerably (door hinges are like $3 or $4 each versus the spring kit which is like $300) but the full weight of the bed is not reduced at all so it's heavy pulling it down or putting it up...it's a 2 person job.

But as you can see there is storage space back behind where we store all the bedding for the bed.

When the bed is all closed up and not in use, we drilled a hole on each side to secure it completely...we used 6" bolts...

And that my friends is our DIY Murphy Bed. I hope you enjoy it and feel free to ask any questions!

17 comments:

Hello, can you help me with a couple of things1. it looks like you used 2x4 for all the framing - would that be correct?2. on the box that holds the bed on the platform - did you use a 2x6/8 at the top and the bottom?3. Did you do ay bracing of the plywood on the back? and if so how..the picture that is just below your hubs on the bed looks like it has a 1x2 maybe or a furring strip running the length straight on the back of the plywood, but i figured you'd have to brace that plywood/mattress somehow...do you find it not necessary? I assume you nailed/screwed the bottom box to the floor in addition tot he framing studs around it?4. I am so making this so am really hoping for a bit more guidance on the mattress box part. I am probably overthinking it, but that's what i do alot, so thanks for any help you provide.

I like it! Question.... you said the "legs" swivel out when you pull down the bed. But it looks like they are attached to the side of the mattress box. So the opening in the "wall" has to be wide enough to accommodate these legs as well, correct?

From looking at other people's video when you foul up the bed the legs are on the top, not the side of the bed. So the piece along the top of the wall frame is hinged, and you pull it out then lower it back in place after lifting the bed to hide the legs.

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